Transitioning Your Skin to Spring

Here in New England, the weather can be quite unpredictable. A few weeks ago, it was in the 70’s here, and over the weekend it got down to 3 degrees overnight and we are expecting a snowstorm this Monday night! Oh boy…My move to North Carolina is sounding better and better!!! Anyway…no matter what region of the world you live in, spring is a transition not only for Mother Nature, but for your skin as well! Here are my tips for helping your skin handle the season change:

I’ve got a mantra for you during seasonal transitions. It will help you not just from winter to spring but from fall to winter as well. It is, in one word:

Homeostasis

Consistency in your routine and not adding any aggressive treatments (such as peels, laser, micro needling, dermal rolling, etc.) during this time is the key to helping your skin to maintain its balance during this time of flux.

Now, I’m a Yoga Teacher, so sometimes on this blog I will use Yoga analogies. So! Imagine your skin is you, on the middle of your yoga mat, in mountain pose. You are balanced on the four corners of your feet, your hands are at heart center and you are grounded in the present moment as well as in the pose. Imagine that there is no one standing near you, nothing around you, no wind, no precipitation and nothing to thwart you from your posture. This is like your skin in homeostasis. Balanced, within a predictable external environment. Your skincare regimen is part of the external environment that your skin encounters.

Now, imagine suddenly there is a strong wind that blows into the room while you are in your pose. Imagine that people start crowding in and almost bump into you. Imagine that it either gets extremely hot or extremely cold in the room in a short amount of time. Imagine that it starts to rain really hard or even snow in the room. All the while, you are trying to maintain your posture. You may need to adjust to your environment slightly, but it is fairly easy because you are very grounded in the pose.

But what happens if you start to try and transition into bird pose? You start to stretch your arms out as you lean forward (for my non-yogi readers it’s sort of like pretending you are an airplane standing on one leg). As you are transitioning into the posture, someone bumps into you. Or a huge, gale force wind comes blowing through and almost knocks you over. It’s a lot harder to maintain your balance, right? This is what changes to your routine is like for your skin during seasonal transitions.

My advice for now? Keep the balance. Stay consistent. Don’t switch up your routine. It will pass! As soon as the weather has stayed consistently warm (or cold!) for about a month or so, your skin will adjust. For now, homeostasis.